Northwestdiver posted on Scubaboard a bad experience with Borneo Divers. IMHO: They’re not all bad. But it’s probably best to deal with one person instead of a “team” of people. And remember, in Malaysia, 99.99% of people in the service industry aren’t trained in customer service and extremely few speak English fluently.
Just wanted to let you all know that Dive Borneo Travel Agency was a royal pain to work with for our recent trip to Malaysia.
First of all, we couldn’t get our preferred dates, because their response time to emails and phone calls was so slow that the resort booked up before we could book our trip!
When we finally did manage to get the booking (and we almost switched Travel Agencies even after working with Dive Borneo for about 5 months, because they still weren’t responsive even after we finalized all the details) they botched a whole bunch of things, including — mainly — neglecting to inform us of Air Malaysia’s increased weight limit for flying divers (that alone cost us about $150 extra, and would have been more if not for an informed diver we spoke to at the resort who saved us the extra charges for our return trip).
There were various other inconveniences, including tours that didn’t materialize and other problems, but I think the major problem I have had with them is that they never even responded to me when I wrote to them after our trip to complain.
I don’t think we had a specific agent (and that might be the root of the problem). Since all their emails to us were signed “Dive Borneo Team” I assume they are all bad.
I think the best thing is to avoid them in the future and to let other people know that there are MUCH better dive travel agents out there.
With so many masks now being manufactured in China and the Far East, they all appear to be very similar. Manufacturers may introduce their tweaks here and there, a slightly different buckle perhaps, but essentially you’d be hard-pushed to tell them apart. The Far East is mass-producing masks in the same way that GM and Ford mass-produced cars. There are, however, some masks that stand out from the crowd.
Two in particular are the X-Vision mask from Mares and the Matrix mask from Cressi. Both these companies have kept production in-house and have come up with two ultra-low-volume masks with particularly soft silicone. Indeed, the Mares offering is manufactured from what the company calls ‘LiquidSkin’. This is a super-stretchy and pliable silicone that gives a superb seal. Cressi, on the other hand, has developed its patented raked lenses with an inverted drop shape and has produced a mask with an incredibly small volume, as well as introducing a soft silicone skirt with a new profile and a broader seal area. Both masks have good strap adjustments, which also pivot to accommodate any angle that is required.
